The Dagger in Vichy

Dust jacket illustration by Andrew Davis.

Alastair Reynolds is back with an eerie mix of fantasy and science fiction, in a riveting novella that combines golden age adventure with the sophisticated sensibilities of Station Eleven.

In a deep medieval future, a band of players travels across France to perform the same old tales in the same old towns. When passing soldiers entrust them with a mysterious box that they say must be delivered to the Imperator, old playwright Master Guillaume and young escaped thief Rufus puzzle at what the box might contain.

When Rufus overhears strange conversations between his Master Guillaume and the thing in the box, he must choose between his loyalty to the man who saved him from the noose and fear of the ancient intelligence working in their midst.

Secrets spill out over the road to Avignon, and none in the troupe are safe. Not Blind Benedict, who once saw the faceless Empty Knight patrolling the deathless Wald that creeps ever closer to the cities, and not Master Bernard whose sensible plans are not equal to the eldritch thing the company now carries with them. All the world’s a stage, and so was every world that came before.

Limited: 1000 signed numbered hardcover copies

From Locus:

“Reynolds does an excellent job with a story that could almost be set in early modern France, slip­ping in references that upend that view. The troupe travel by horse-drawn wagon; there seems to be no long-range communication; Guillaume writes his plays by hand, on paper. But Bernard’s dagger has a nugget of depleted uranium in the hilt, armies use energy-artillery, and some rich cities have healing coffins for medical emergencies. It’s eventually revealed that the story is set many centuries after our own time, after the Twilight Centuries, and there are still remnants of pre-Twilight equip­ment for those who know how to use them. It’s not quite a postapocalyptic world – or rather, it’s many centuries on from disaster, such that folks are now simply living in the world as it is. While society has regressed in terms of the technology people can access, they are also simply getting on with life. Much as the people of early modern France did. It is, I think, a declaration of human resilience (or bloody-mindedness) in the face of catastrophe (much like life in Chasm City after the Melding Plague, in some of Reynolds’ Revelation Space stories).”

The Dagger in Vichy
(excerpt)

What happened next, I only know because of the joint testimony of Bernard and Master Guillaume, when they returned to the wagon.

From out of the verge came a rasp of ragged breath.

The rasp shaped a wordless human groan.

“Bernard,” Master Guillaume called. “Come, please. There’s someone here.”

“Careful, both of you,” Fergus shouted back.

I projected my head further out of the wagon’s side-window. “Master Guillaume—I’ll go instead of you, sir!”

“It’s all right, boy,” Master Guillaume called back to me. “I’m not for the cemetery just yet.”

“You aren’t,” Bernard said, touching a hand to his shoulder. “But I should still go first.”

Bernard drew out his precious carbon-bladed dagger. He had allowed me to examine it on occasion, and I knew it to have been handed down to Bernard through six generations of master-soldier. It was heavy but beautifully balanced, with a nugget of depleted uranium lodged in the hilt.

“Caution, brother,” Master Guillaume said.

“Indeed. It must be a poor ambusher to make such noise, but we’ll take no chances.” He edged past Master Guillaume, stepping down gingerly into a ditch concealed by the undergrowth. “Easy, friend,” Bernard said, speaking into the gloom. Then, turning around: “There’s a soldier here, Guy, an injured man. He’s no enemy of ours.”

Master Guillaume battled through the nettles. A bareheaded man lay lengthwise in the ditch, wearing black armour. The man’s arms pressed a boxy wooden form against his chest.

Bernard knelt. He sheathed his dagger and offered a hand to the man’s shoulder.

“My name is Bernard, friend. Yours?”

The man spoke French well enough, but his accent was Teutonic. “Sir Joseph of Friedrichshafen, sir. A knight of the Imperial Guard.”

“I was once in the Imperator’s service, Sir Joseph,” Bernard confided. “The Third Legion, under Hildegard of Mons. I was commissioned out after the Battle of Lucerne.”

Some rare wonder cracked the soldier’s voice.

“You were at Lucerne?”

“Yes, and with the neuralgia and palsy to show for it.” Bernard smiled tightly. “You’re hurt, friend. Let us bring you to our wagon, and then to Bourges.”

Master Guillaume’s eyes adapted to the shadows. A fissure had been opened in the man’s armour from rib to thigh, gouged wide and puddled with blood. He could not say if it had been done by blade, ball, or particle-strike.

“I’m finished,” Joseph said. Though a knight, he seemed barely out of boyhood.

“What happened, my friend?” Master Guillaume put to him.

“They jumped us about twenty leagues from here—ambushed the Landmaster. Energy-artillery, some siege-blasters.”

Master Guillaume nodded gravely. “We saw and heard a battle, the night before last, in the direction of Orleans. We thought it was fireworks to begin with, then realised it was something more.”

“That was it, friend.” Joseph’s eyes shifted to Master Guillaume. “What’s your name, traveller? Are you a former soldier as well?”

“Guillaume of Ghent. I’m with a travelling theatrical company, on our way east. There are eight of us. You may have heard of…”

Joseph cut him off gently. “Are you loyal, masters?”

Bernard said: “To the death.”